Akhilesh inaugurates 910 projects in a day

Lucknow, Dec 20 (IANS) With assembly polls likely to be announced any time now, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav went on a ribbon cutting spree on Tuesday and set a record of sorts.

In a packed schedule, the 43-year-old inaugurated 910 projects, laid foundation stones of 13 more, distributed free laptop to 26,000 students and gave away cheques under the Samajwadi Pension Scheme to a whopping 91,125 beneficiaries.

While Akhilesh Yadav went to each Lucknow project to inaugurate them, other were done remotely.

An official told IANS that the projects inaugurated on Tuesday were spread in 59 of the 75 districts of the state and cost more than Rs 51,000 crore.

They included the newly built wing at the Lohia Medical Institute here, community health centres in Faizabad, a 200-bed hospital for pregnant women and newly-born in Lucknow and 80 new hospitals in various districts.

Akhilesh Yadav also inaugurated the international cricket stadium and CG City at Shaheed Path in the state capital, built on 846.49 acres of land.

It comprises an IT City, an Indian Information Technology Institute, a modern dairy plant, a super-speciality hospital, an administrative academy and a modern medi-city and a cancer institute.

The other projects the Chief Minister took up included a state university building in Allahabad, agriculture marketing hubs, rural infrastructure centres, multi-purpose buildings, link roads and guest houses, garlic, vegetable, potato hubs in Kannauj, a solar plant in Mainpuri and a five-storey new OPD at the Sanjay Gandhi post-graduate Institute of Medical Sciences.

There was also the riverfront projects on the Gomti in Lucknow, a fancy, hi-tech and sprawling Chief Minister’s Secretariat, the trial run of a small stretch of the Lucknow Metro Rail and the 302-km long Agra-Lucknow Expressway.

Many projects are also lined up for Jhansi.

A modern facilities equipped Rs 11 crore model bus station was inaugurated at Qaiserbagh in Lucknow.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati has accused Akhilesh Yadav of “rushing through half complete projects” since he has nothing to show in five years of his regime.

She has even threatened action against officials in charge of such projects if she was voted to power in the 2017 assembly polls.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) General Secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak accused the government of rolling out incomplete projects like the Agra-Lucknow expressway and imperilling the lives of the people.